Kallas stared at her silently. She could tell from his expression that he knew she was telling the truth. She continued.
“So like I said, the only reason I’m in here is to let you give me your version. I don’t need it. We’ve got you. It’s not like a confession will make much difference. They can’t execute you twice, after all. But as you know, I’m a profiler so I’m inherently curious about this kind of aberrant behavior. So I’m giving you one last chance to come clean. If you’re not interested, that’s your call. I’ll head out for a late dinner. Just know that once I walk out that door, you’ll have lost the last sympathetic audience you’ll ever get.”
She stood up. He said nothing.
“Tick-tock, Dick,” she said as she headed for the door.
She was just grabbing the handle when she heard him speak.
“Wait.”
*
If they hadn’t sedated her, she wouldn’t have slept at all that night.
Kallas’s words echoed in her mind all the way to the hospital after the interrogation and resumed again the moment she got up. She replayed them once more as she stood in the shower, letting the warm water massage the twisted muscles in her back.
He had gone through every detail of the crime meticulously, from the moment he’d decided to kill Michaela until he drove off afterward. His description of the murder matched the video he’d taken perfectly.
But it wasn’t the actual killing that made it hard to get the case out of her head. It was Kallas’s demeanor. She still recalled his answer when she asked why he’d killed her.
“You don’t get it,” he’d said as he sat in the interrogation room, his body still coiled in excitement at recalling what he’d done. “I’d seen her movies. I could tell from the bored look in her eyes that she needed something more. So I sought her out. And I found her. We found each other. And it was better than I could have imagined. One time she wore a nurse’s uniform. The next she pretended to be a patient. We used almost every room in the office. It was a delight.”
“So what changed?” Jessie asked him.
“She lied to me.”
“What did she lie about?” Jessie had asked, working hard to keep judgment out of her voice.
“I told her that I would take care of her, that she should stop having dates with those pathetic fans. I also told her that after she’d completed whatever movies she was contracted to do, she should stop shooting them entirely. I would make up her lost income. She said she would make the changes. But she didn’t stop.”
“She still saw other clients?” Jessie prodded.
“Several. I confronted her about it and she acted as if she thought I was kidding. She said I couldn’t possibly be serious. When I told her that I was, she said I was weirding her out and that we couldn’t see each other anymore. That wasn’t right. So I made things right.”
“Richard,” Jessie asked, knowing it would probably be her last question, “looking back, do you feel guilty at all for what you did?”
“For what exactly?” he replied, genuinely perplexed.
“For raping and killing a seventeen-year-old girl, for stabbing her nine times, for ending the life of another person just because she wouldn’t be exactly what you wanted her to be? I almost understand losing yourself in the moment. But afterward, in the days since, have you felt bad at all?”
She pictured Hannah lying on that bed instead of Michaela. The two of them were so alike—troubled, smart girls, damaged by the world but still with promising futures.
Kallas looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language.
“Jessie,” he said slowly, as if he was talking to a child, “she lied to me. She wronged me. She ruined the plans I’d made for us. Why should I feel bad for something she did? Ask her if she felt bad.”
“I can’t,” Jessie reminded him. “She’s dead.”
She turned off the shower, unsure how long she’d been standing there reliving their conversation in her mind. As she wrapped a towel around herself and stepped out, her brain continued to circle around some truth that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was right there, at the edge of her consciousness, teasing her.
She closed the shower door and as it clicked shut, something in her mind clicked too. She realized what had been bothering her, the itch she couldn’t quite scratch. She had been imagining Hannah in Michaela’s position, a potential victim of a horrible crime.
But the more she thought about it, the more Hannah reminded her of someone else. The bold, pointless lies told so easily, the utter disregard for anyone’s well-being besides her own, the seeming lack of empathy for those around her.
Hannah reminded Jessie more of Richard Kallas than of Michaela Penn. And though she’d just spent ten minutes in a hot shower, Jessie suddenly felt horribly cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
For a criminal profiler, Jessie Hunt felt pretty stupid.
She hadn’t figured it out when Ryan insisted on driving them back downtown after being discharged from the hospital. She hadn’t figured it out when he suggested they use their much deserved forced day off after tangling with a murderer to go bowling at the Lucky Strike at L.A. Live in the middle of the afternoon. She hadn’t even figured it out when she walked into the place and saw balloons and streamers.
It wasn’t until everyone jumped out to yell “Happy Birthday” that she realized what was going on. To be honest, she had completely forgotten that today was her thirtieth birthday. But apparently Ryan hadn’t.
How he’d managed to coordinate all this while in the middle of two investigations, courtroom testimony, and a hospital-requiring run-in with a sociopathic killer was beyond her. She looked over at him and was amused by his Cheshire cat smile.
“You’re sneaky,” she said playfully. “You said I needed to clear Thursday evening.”
He shrugged nonchalantly as if it was no big deal. Before he could say anything, they were swarmed by people. Hannah was there, with Garland, Kat, and a guy Jessie didn’t recognize but assumed was Deputy Mitch Connor.
Dr. Lemmon stood nearby as did Agent Jack Dolan and Patrick “Murph” Murphy, the federal marshal who’d protected her when her father was stalking her. Detectives Trembley and Callum Reid and officers Beatty and Nettles from Central Station were in attendance, as was Ryan’s ample-gutted buddy from Westside division, Detective Brady Bowen. Even Captain Decker had showed up.
They all hugged her gingerly, aware that she had been hospitalized recently.
“Hey, at least you got out fast this time,” Kat said drily. “I’m used to you convalescing in hospital beds for weeks at a time.”
“Me too,” Jessie said. “Thanks for stopping by to watch Hannah last night. I hope it didn’t mess up anything with that mountain man deputy over there.”
“Nah. Mitch and I needed a little break to come up for air, if you know what I mean,” she said, winking obviously.
“I do know what you mean, Katherine. But thanks for leaving little to the imagination. Just try to keep your clothes on until the party’s over, okay?”
“I’m not making any promises,” he friend said, already returning to the lane where Mitch was waiting for her.